Toronto residents and businesses are invited to learn more about and provide input on the City's development charges bylaw review, including the proposed rates and related bylaw policies. The City is hosting two evening public information and consultation sessions on January 15 and 17, as well as the statutory public meeting at Executive Committee on January 24.

Development charges are fees collected from developers at the time a building permit is issued. The fees help to pay for the cost of infrastructure required to provide municipal services to new development, such as roads, transit, water and sewer infrastructure, community centres, fire and police facilities.

Most municipalities in Ontario use development charges to recover the cost of providing infrastructure to service new development rather than recovering the costs from existing residents and businesses in the form of higher property taxes.

The City is reviewing its development charges bylaw, and has released a background study and the proposed bylaw for consultation, which can be viewed at http://www.toronto.ca/devcharges. The background study determines the maximum development charge rates that the City can levy under the provincial Development Charges Act.

Members of the public can attend the following public consultation sessions to learn about the issues, provide feedback and join discussion groups on key topics at the following two public consultation sessions:

Toronto residents and businesses can also attend the statutory public meeting and make a presentation to the City's Executive Committee:

City Hall, Committee Room 1
100 Queen St. W.
Wednesday, January 24, 10 a.m. or as soon as possible thereafter

To register to speak at Executive Committee, please call 416-392-4666 or e-mail exc@toronto.ca no later than noon on January 23.

Written comments may be submitted to the City Clerk, attention: Josephine Archbold, Committee Administrator, Executive Committee, Toronto City Hall, 100 Queen St. W., 10th Floor, West Tower, Toronto, ON M5H 2N2, or by fax: 416-392-1879 or by e-mail: exc@toronto.ca.

Written comments received prior to the meeting and submissions made at the public meeting will be considered by City Council prior to the enactment of the new development charges bylaw. All submissions received become part of the public record.

City staff will consider input from the public consultation process in the followup report and final background study, and plan to report back to a subsequent Executive Committee meeting in March with any changes to the proposed bylaw and development charge study calculations. It is anticipated that Council will consider the bylaw this spring.

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